13–14 October 2011 the Department of Foreign languages hosted the International Scientific and Practical Seminar "Challenges and Experiences in Foreign Language Education in the New Millenium: Ukraine"
Foreign language teachers from all over Ukraine took part in the seminar. Representatives of higher educational institutions from Kyiv, Chercassy, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Dnepropetrovsk came to the NMU.
Among them were directors of linguistic centres of the NMU,
O. Shalenko, Partnerships and Projects Manager of the British Council in Ukraine;
Anna Morris, Oxford University Press in Ukraine Area Manager;
Kateryna Kanevska, Representative of Osvita Educational Informational and Advising Center,
Rod Bolitho, Norwich Institute for Language Education (NILE), UK, Academic Director,
professor Virginia Kleist, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Management Information Systems, College of Business and Economics, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV USA, Fulbright Specialist to the National Mining University, the USA,
David Barry, BE, CEng, FICE, MCIW: Director, DLB Environmental, UK,
Christopher Glover, Karbona Energo, Managing Director, Australia,
Stefan Sennhenn, Bosch-Lektor, Germany,
Tetiana Kozymyrska (Portugal).
The foreign experts who were unable to come to Ukraine sent their materials and greetings to the seminar participants. 100 participants representing higher educational institutions, including technical schools and colleges, and secondary school teachers of Dniproperovsk Region attended the seminar.
A wide range of questions was discussed at the seminar, including the following:
- International cooperation and collaboration in the area of language education and its European dimensions;
- The Bologna process in Ukraine: experiences and challenges;
- European dimensions of language education in Ukraine;
- European Credit Transfer System and its implication for foreign languages;
- Innovative approaches to developing communicative language competences;
- Distance learning: challenges and experience;
- ICT and e-learning tools for foreign language teaching/learning;
- Life long learning and learner autonomy;
- Quality Assurance, assessment and evaluation.
In the framework of the seminar the participants made reports and the he following events took place: round table discussions dedicated to the topic “Language Education: Why? What? and How?”, “Foreign Languages Course Design: European Dimensions”, teacher-training workshops, master classes on innovative approaches to English language teaching, preparation for international foreign languages tests and teachers’ professional development opportunities.
The seminar participants made proposals and upheld decisions regarding language education improvement, including the following:
- Developing uniform requirements and criteria regarding Assessment and Evaluation in Foreign Language Teaching corresponding to international standards, which aims to facilitate recognition of students’ language education records by different higher educational institutions;
- Providing for transparency of teaching quality evaluation procedures with the purpose of elimination of subjective evaluation possibility;
- Widespread introduction of ICT and e-learning tools for foreign language teaching/learning.
Collected materials of “Challenges and Experiences in Foreign Language Education in the New Millennium: UKRAINE” seminar were published.
13.09.2011 the Department of Foreign Languages hosted a scientific and practical seminar "Knowing how to tell a story!" conducted by David Barry, head of DBL Environmental (Great Britain).
During the seminar teachers of the foreign languages department and the department of technical translation, students and postgraduates could get the answers to their questions about international standards in scientific and academic writing, lexical, grammatical and stylistic peculiarities of academic and scientific papers in English.
15.06. 2011 Seminar EFL Testing and assessment Strategies: Pearson Test of English, organised by ЕS2A company (the exclusive distributor of the Pearson Test in Ukraine) with the support of LBS company, took place at the Department of Foreign languages, NMU.
More than 50 school and university teachers from Dnipropetrovsk, Dniprodzerzhinsk, Kryvyi Rih and Marganets listened to the teacher trainer from S2A Svitlana Sorochynska, who spoke about structure, materials and preparation strategies for Pearson Test of English General and presented a new English course book Speakout
The course books were available at the book exhibition organised for the participants by Learners' Book Company.
